The number of South Africans who spend time on social media is gradually increasing, but their "engagement" — the frequency of posts, shares and likes — has dropped substantially.
Chinese video-sharing app TikTok remains the fastest-growing platform, while LinkedIn is the only network that had an increase in engagement by brands in the past year.
These findings were released in June by research firms World Wide Worx and Ornico in the SA Social Media Landscape 2020 report.
The report estimates that there are 24-million SA users on Facebook, 7.7-million on LinkedIn, almost 6-million on TikTok, and over 9-million each on Instagram and Twitter.
Microsoft reported a global increase in growth on LinkedIn in its quarterly performance report in April, with the number of users growing by 15-million since January to 690-million. Despite Covid-19’s impact on adspend and job listings, it is experiencing "record levels of engagement".
Hari Srinivasan, LinkedIn’s vice-president of product management, says that in the first week of April, people watched 1.7-million hours of content on LinkedIn Learning, as against 560,000 hours in the first week of January, a threefold increase.
The number of South Africans who joined TikTok has accelerated since the national lockdown began, TikTok content operations manager for Africa Boniswa Sidwaba told TimesLive.
Ornico marketing manager Mongezi Mtati says LinkedIn and TikTok had already shown steady growth before the lockdown, but social media use has changed during the pandemic.
"There is an unprecedented increase in webinars and livestreams; even governments, which tend to adopt technology later than most users, have been dabbling more with live video."
Mobile operators Vodacom, MTN and rain tell the FM that there has been an increase in data usage on their networks since the lockdown began.
"Over the past three months MTN has witnessed an increase in data consumption both on prepaid and postpaid, and Supersonic [fibre] customers, says MTN SA corporate affairs executive Jacqui O’Sullivan. "Data traffic has more than doubled from last year, mainly due to businesses and work going digital."
A Vodacom spokesperson says the temporary assignment of spectrum by the communications regulator has helped add network capacity quickly and cost-effectively, which allowed it to fast-track the launch of its mobile and fixed 5G commercial service during lockdown.
Khaya Dlanga, chief marketing officer at rain, says it has noticed a 35% increase per user on its unlimited data services during lockdown, and a significant uptake from new customers. "Network traffic patterns have changed from the city to suburbs and there has been an uptick in video conferencing and entertainment."
What is the impact of this increase on engagement with companies?
Users have flocked to social media and have burnt through data during lockdown, but companies have had to cut marketing budgets. Mtati says it is important for brands to understand audiences and their needs as everyone adjusts to this shift.
"Reallocating budget to increase it across social media is important during this time as people spend more time online, but brands should understand why people are on social media during this time," says Mtati.
Empathy and human-centred communication is more important than brands adding spend to push messaging for the sake of it, he says. "Budget in the right areas is important."
Aqeelah Harron Ally of Fashion Breed, a digital creator in Cape Town, says the content that companies post on social media channels needs be more relevant to users, and there needs to be a shift in both tone and topic. "Brands and their employees need to survive — so do content creators — and the reality is that people are still shopping. The pandemic can’t be ignored, but advertising can’t stop either," says Harron Ally.
The lockdown has affected her income directly due to budgets being reduced and jobs being cancelled or postponed.
"If brands can afford to advertise now, it’s definitely a great time to spend since screen time has gone up," she says. "Even if your marketing budget is small, approach macro-influencers or try to negotiate a deal with the creative you’ve got your eye on."
Companies have to adapt and constantly think of their next move, short term and long term, she says. "Comfortability will kill you, and that’s what this virus has shown us. The world — online and offline — moves and changes so fast, and you’ve got to make it a habit to keep up and keep your finger on the pulse in both spaces."
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